A while ago I finished my ultramarine stormeagle. Since then I have added the awesome fireraptor. I am really torn as to how to review this kit, but I think that final piece speaks for it’s self.

Finished Storm Eagle

So why then the dilemma? Well lets be honest, despite my love of all things forge world, this kit is the single most infuriating thing to assemble. It’s hard to say why it’s such a bitch, but I will try to explain.

WIP 1

let’s talk about the kit. First of, it’s a hybrid kit. It’s part resin, part plastic stormraven kit. Now this keeps the cost down, but it does present the challenge of working in 2 materials. This can be a pain, but it’s not that that makes it such a pain. You need to be cautious when smoothing over the soft resin and the harder plastic at same time.

Large resin sides. The long sides for this kit suffer from a huge amount of warping. Easy to fix, but it takes a while. The rear of the kit is were the real problems start. The rear door sufferers from shrinkage and this makes to a right bugger. Lining the Door up, throws the sides out, the perfect lining of the plastic robs you of the flexibility to align the resin. The mixed top then added to this dilema. I cheated and made the Rear door over lap in the end. it worked for me!

Rear veiw eagle

The line up at the rear make the build a nightmare! The side ‘jets’ at the front use the plastic jets into the resin castings. This again is a pain . The casting was very thin and the 2 parts don’t work well. You still get the moveable parts, but they are tight.

The front canard (front wings) don’t get much in the way of alignment. The little lugs on the sides are ok, but they take a while to glue into place.

The other parts, such as the main wings, engines and top plates work ok.

Finished Fireraptor

So why the is fire raptor such much better?

They have tweaked the build and fixed it up. The side jets have been replaced with fixed parts. They just stick on to the side pods. The rear assembly is some much better. it slots together. The rear door has been replaced with an elongated side door. It fits together so well.

Raptor Body

Body and Wing assambly

All in these 2 kits are good. The eagle has a reputation (well deserved) of being a bitch to build, the raptor is a massive improvement. Together they look awesome and add something to your spacemarine lists.

The twin birds,

The raven is a good unit, but I love the eagle. The apocalypse launcher is great! The spacemarines lack the pie plate and this has 2! The raptor brings The avenger cannon (str 6, ap 3 heavy 7) which is a real killer.

Today I felt like reviewing a model. Now I have never done this before, so bear with me. I have just brought a Necron Tesseract Ark form Forgeworld.

From Imperial Armour 12-The fall of Orpheus, the Ark is a new heavy support choice for the Necron Army. As Forgeworld describe them

“The Tesseract Ark is one of the most powerful Necron war machines encountered on the battlefields of the 41st Millennium, and so sophisticated is its design, it can be manufactured only by the most adept of Crypteks. Built around a contained singularity torn from the heart of a dying star, in battle the Tesseract Ark can siphon the destructive energies of this captured star-fragment and unleash them in a variety of terrible ways. Most notably, the armoured bulk of the Tesseract Ark is surrounded by a gravitic distortion effect, a potent defensive mechanism.

So lets talk about the kit. This is what I call a hybrid kit, its part plastic and part resin. For your £55.00 you get the back end of the Ghost ark kit and 16 resin pieces. The model is all about the stumpy emitter array at the front. This 6 piece kit is a fun piece to build and it sits together well. It’s easy to assemble without the need to attach it to the model, making painting it easier. Like many Necron models, it easy to build subassembly parts that fit together post painting. I have left mine in 3 big sections. These are the front hull with the Teslas cannons, the control section and side hull and the rear assembly and seating. The driver and the side thrusters are also separate.

The crew is the same as the Ghost ark, but with a funky new head. This is a great head and I was so tempted not to use it. I loved the Single Eye and crown that I have not seen before other than on the Crypteks. I have never liked the pointing hand so this has been converted. I have also swapped out the ‘pipes’ with thin guitar wire. This makes the fit smoother. The kit will hang together well and I can tac it together with blue-tac.

As always with Forgeworld, the devil is in the detail. Now, this casting is fairly simple and smooth. The big front single is well cast. It had the odd air bubble, but for a huge item, it OK. The head, Main gun and all the side pods are all perfect. Only the side guns needed a bit of straightening. A bit of warm water later and it’s sorted.

The Prep was quite hard. All the long edges on the core piece took about 3 hours to get the way I wanted. It can be hard to sort the sides it took a mix of Liquid Green and emery boards to get it smooth and the rounded edges, curved edges and the counter sunk holes were all very difficult to sort, but worth it in the end.

Games wise, the rules are interesting. The Armour is 12 all over, but it gets Quantum shields, making it 14. With 5 hull points, it’s a tough old thing. Rules wise its open topped, heavy, tank and a skimmer. The singularity chamber is the main weapon, but you 2 tesla cannons (not Twin linked) not a bad AA weapon. The Chamber has 3 modes, a Heavy AP S7 gun, a S3, Ap3 Flamer that has Fleshbane (wounds all infantry on 2+) and Seismic lash weapon. It’s a S5, ap4 mini Deathray. As well as Armour bane it gets a ground lash, all units hit are treated as being in difficult terrain. As well as the shooting bits, you also get a 5++ save and weird gavational effects that effect combat against it. That’s the positive side; however the loss of the singularity chamber is a bit of an issue. It can sort of well, erm, blow it to kingdom come! Its can destroy the whole model and anything else around it.

So what can I say about this kit? Well I like it. It’s a bit funky and just a little odd. The look is good and not a normal GW model. It’s only the pointing arm that I don’t like, but that’s sorted. In game it will be fun, but for 250 points I am sure it will work out. All in all, it’s a great model.

On to the painting this fantastic model. The painting this was harder that I thought. I painted it 9 parts. The 4 jets, the main gun, the driver and the 2 main body parts. The paint scheme looks good on this kit its a weird thing to paint. I went for a taller stand so it looks a bit different.

Ozrax

I am an old Warhammer 40,000 warhorse. I have been painting and gaming since 1989 and this blog is about my adventures with a Paint Brush. I love my hobby and am always Pro hobby. I am the Cheerleader for the Miniature Monday on Twitter.